Madhya Pradesh Farmers Were Given Rs 2,000 Notes Without The Gandhi Image And Told It’s Not Fake

At a time when there’s a growing voice against black money that the demonetisation move apparently intends to clean up from the economy, two farmers in a remote village in Madhya Pradesh were handed Rs 2,000 notes that didn’t have the image of Mahatma Gandhi.

In Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district, the farmers received the apparent fake notes from a State Bank of India branch, reports Times Of India.

When they approached the bank officials, they were told that the notes are “genuine”. The bank, however, took back the notes.

The farmers were told that the missing Gandhi image was because of a “printing error”.

“The incident took place at Shivpuri Road branch of SBI. The notes were not counterfeit, but probably there was some printing error. They were taken back as soon as it (the error) was detected,” Sheopur district manager of SBI, Akash Shrivastav told ToI.

Fake Rs 2,000 notes have been doing the rounds for a while now. In fact, the first of its kind was reported just two days after the new notes went in circulation. Last month, Odisha police recovered Rs 4.8 lakh in the new currency, all in fake notes. Yesterday, three people were arrested after police recovered Rs 7.64 lakh in Rs 2,000 fake notes in Kanpur.